Everyone has been very professional, even when things got a bit tense here and there, so it's a bit of an abrupt tonal shift when the DRT officer who just went through the portal to check that there was room for an orderly exit on the other side comes back through mid-bellow of "—TYFUCKING CHRIST, GET BACK GET BACK" and just about tackles the nearest human body out of the way of a small flood of panicked rescuees.

" - CLEAR THE PORTAL" Sitko bellows, and she and the rest of the squad suit action to words.

Someone's crying. Someone trips on their way in and someone else picks them up and pulls them forward, out of the way of the next person, who is yelling incoherently in a panic. Someone keeps running deeper into the dungeon and has to be snagged by a DRT officer before they get out of sight. It is just about as disorderly an exit as you could ask for, and it is, inexplicably, rescuees running back into the dungeon they just left with a handful of support workers in tow and one more DRT officer bringing up the rear.

And then the flow cuts off.

"—giant worm," says the officer who was so unprofessional as to cuss at the top of his lungs in the middle of a rescue operation, once he has a moment to at least begin to catch his breath. "Uh, giant worm tearing up the street. I think it ate the tents." A heaving, stuttering gasp. "Fuck, shit."

Sitko glances around briefly for Field Officer Fitzpatrick, and, finding no such person in the dungeon antechamber, says, "All right, everybody keep back from the portal.  Rescues and support staff to the left with Clancy and Lopez.  Du, Connelly, truck the core out of here, two rooms back.  Peregrine, with them, in case one of those things decides to crawl out of it.  Davis, get me a selfie stick.  Burns," this being the bearer of bad news, "Shadowcat, with me."

"Fuck," wheezes Burns, but he heaves himself to his feet and acknowleges, "Sir."

She claps him on the back.  "No worms in here, soldier," she says bracingly.  That sounds like Arrakis to her, and no Arrakis worm is getting through that dinky dungeon portal.  "You're okay.  Tell me what you saw."

He straightens up and takes a deep breath. "Something big came out of the ground, right under the tents. It had a..." he forms his hands into a crude approximation of radial jaws opening and closing. "A face like that. Swallowed half the camp on its way up, big ugly towering round wormy thing, then started falling toward the portal. I hadn't been out more than ten seconds so I was closest, and I could see Leblanc and Fitzpatrick rushing everybody toward me, so I turned around and went back through, to, uh, clear the way." He's a bit sheepish about how exactly he approached that.

"It was about like that," Leblanc corroborates. "Fitzpatrick was... right behind me, getting everyone through that we could." She eyes the portal. "A little too far behind, it looks like."

Sitko eyes the portal too.

"Well," she says.  " 'S where we're at.  Good work, both of you."

Davis arrives.  "Selfie stick, sir."

"Good man," Sitko says.  She whistles, piercingly, for attention.  "All right listen up.  We're gonna check things out as best we can, but it sounds to me like Arrakis just hit Toronto.  We're safe in here, the portal won't pull something that big through.  Anybody here served against Arrakis before?"

Shaking heads.

"All right.  Best of my knowledge, if this worm showed up without warning, it means the dungeon just hit, 'cuz otherwise we would have heard the screaming first, and it means the entry portal is underneath us.  If that holds, then backup SWAT teams and espers are on their way or will be soon.  But right now all we know for sure is that a worm hit base camp.  This dungeon is cleared, and we got guns on the core in case it tries something, so in here is the safest place we could be, but everybody's gonna stay together."

"Way I see it, we got a portal, we don't know what's on the other side, standard procedure.  Davis is gonna take a few first look shots, just like we were going in instead of out, while I talk to Shadowcat."

"Sir?" he says, levelly.

"You rated for Arrakis worms?"

"Never fought Arrakis, sir, but I've never met a dungeon monster that was any harder to block out than an ordinary human and that wasn't psychic."

"Alright, good to hear.  Depending on what Davis shows me I may want you taking point on investigating the condition of the base camp.  They tell me you've got a sensor rating but I'm not sure I understand it."

"If I tell my power to block something from noticing me, I can make an educated guess as to how many of that something are trying to notice me, and sometimes how easy it is for them, and whether they're coming closer or moving away."

"How hard is this compared to just using your power normally?"

"Takes some attention, but it doesn't cost me any extra backlash.  All I'm really doing is estimating based on my backlash accumulation how hard my power is working."

"All right.  Well, I'll want your best guess as to what that worm's up to, and I'll trust you to give it to me."

Nod.  "Understood, sir.  Thank you."

"Thank you," she says.

She considers him.

"Brown, on support," she says.  "You two are involved."

Breath.

"I love her," he says simply.  "And I hope very dearly she's alive."  Another breath.  "And I've got a job to do, and I'm gonna try to save as many people as I can."

"Good man," Sitko says.  "I hope she's alive too, if you don't mind me saying.  Worked with her before, she's damn good at what she does."

"She is."

Nod.  "You'll have your orders."

"Yes sir."

The selfie stick comes back with a bunch of shots of: rubble.

But no giant worms currently thrashing or lolloping catastrophically around.  Good to know.  "Shadowcat, you're up.  Report in, radio for backup, but let's not hang too much hope on it getting here any time soon.  Check out the remains of base camp, once around as far as you safely can.  Anybody alive and safely mobile, bring them back here.  Anyone alive and not safely mobile, make a note for the meds, we'll send them out.  Track what the worm is doing best you can."

"Yes sir."  He regards the portal and rolls his shoulders.  He clicks his power on: No Sandworms should be allowed to register or react to his presence in any way.  (Nothing pings him inside the dungeon, thank God.)

This was not what he fucking meant when he said ready to go round two.

Nothing for it.  He steps through.

Lotta rubble out here. The street is badly torn up. There seems to be an approximate divide between places where the ground level is a little too low (by the guiding and first aid tents where most of the rescuees would've been) and where the ground level is a little too high (closer to the portal), as though somebody came through with a big shovel, scooped up a quick shovel-load of fresh dungeon victims along with the asphalt they were standing on, gave the rest of the area a few solid whacks to crudely level out this strange irregularity known as 'buildings', and left.

The air is filled with screeching, knifelike wormsong.

 - that sounds like a lot more than one worm.

He taps his foot.

It's a lot more than one worm's attention on him, unless it's a monomaniacally focused worm.

But from the screams, from the relative stillness of the ground, the worm that just attacked their base camp doesn't seem to be sticking around.  Arrakis worms are supposed to come out gradually, one by one, but it seems like they're all over the city in a matter of minutes.

First step is to radio this in.  His name's Shadowcat, calling in from outside .14021, outdoors in the middle of Maple Ridge, dungeon's cleared but an Arrakis worm ate their base camp and wrecked the whole block.  Everyone who could fled into the cleared dungeon, he's checking for worm activity and movable casualties, they could use backup.

This is happening all over the place, everyone could use backup.  Sit tight and move anyone you can to safety.

Yeah.

Okay.  Wrecked street.  Wrecked cars.  Wrecked DRT caution tape.  Wrecked human bodies.  Smell of dust and blood.  Cautiously, lopingly, keeping his center of gravity low, he starts to move along the rubble, careful of any shifts beneath his feat, toward the nearest coherent human sound.

The nearest coherent human sound looks to be this person over here.

Let's start with the good news: head and torso intact and visible, one arm definitely free, seems conscious if woozy, making something resembling an effort to free themself from the rubble.

And now for the bad news: their legs are pretty buried and it's hard to see what's going on down there but this is not a "no news is good news" kind of situation; they're woozy enough to be having serious trouble taking directed action; the actions they are taking are making an amount of noise that will probably result in Further Worm Attention sooner or later.

- he can't help this person yet.  He'll reassess if any worms seem to start heading their way, but - he needs to check over the rubble to make sure the medical support can transit it safely, they'll be more able to help the stranger than Bryce working alone.  If anyone can walk, he'll bring them to the portal.  Otherwise - 

"Help!" says the person, who is not privy to his reasoning.

Well.  They're not the only person he can hear screaming.  Some days, in this job, it pays not to be a good person.

Ground's pretty stable.  Most of the medical supplies were in the tent, but this hospital van looks like it might have some intact stuff in it.  Anybody on their feet - 

In a word, no.

Ask a stupid question.  Lotta people out here having pretty rough days.  The fastest way he can help them is by getting back to the portal; and so he does.

Portal's right where he left it. Injured people trapped under rubble also aren't going anywhere.

Sure aren't.

Back in.  He gives Sitko and the medical team a fast rundown: here's the nearest people, here's the ones with rubble that looks like it can be moved off them without disturbing anything precarious, here's the least wrecked looking medical vans.  Most of the wrecked street is pretty stable but these are the stablest paths across it.  Lots of people alive and screaming but nobody ambulatory.

The worm's not paying them any attention, far as he can tell, but there's a lot more than one thing that can hear him when he taps his foot.  From the reply when he called it in, there's a lot more than one worm breaching.  From the wormsong, it might be for miles around.

He needs guiding.

He does, but they need espers out there helping shift the rubble off people's legs as soon as possible.

"I can - "

" - I can ride it out."

" - okay."

Shadowcat, Peregrine, and two med techs - Suzuki and de la Cruz - head out of the portal; he directs them, as fast as he safely can, toward the nearest injured person.

"Hey! Over here! Help!"

He and Peregrine are directed into position, to shift the rubble off the stranger's legs; de la Cruz and Suzuki get ready to move them.  On three - 

Their rescuee cringes slightly in anticipation, and—

—well. It's not as bad as it could have been. All the bits are still attached and in roughly the correct places. Modern medicine can probably treat this, unless it's worse than it looks, which to be fair it might be; not all injuries are obvious at a glance.

The fact that it's a fairly optimistic picture does not stop the injured party from venting a shocked, breathless sob and then passing out.

All right.  She and Suzuki will start treating this person for shock.  She sends Shadowcat back to the portal for med tech reinforcements and Peregrine to check out that relatively unwrecked med van, maybe teleport in and out with some blue gloves and N95s.

Okay.  Let's find the next nearest person that he and the other two med techs can get out from under the rubble, or otherwise get to relative safety, on their own.

There's no shortage of people trapped in the rubble, some in better condition than the first one, some worse. Many of them are relatively straightforward to get free, though sometimes they need a bit of calming down first so they don't hurt themselves further.

Shadowcat's most important contribution to most of them is brute strength; an esper is valuable for shifting chunks of wrecked macadam.  Occasionally, he can lay his hand on an injured leg or arm, gently enough to not damage it further, but firmly enough to be The Cause of the pain, and flick on his power to render his touch, and the pain it causes, more easily ignorable, for a moment.

His anaesthetic interventions are greatly appreciated. And the rubble shifting, too.

In addition to gloves and masks, Toby retrieves an efficiently-unfoldable stretcher which allows them to move their rescues into the dungeon, where they won't attract worms while they wait for backup.

Sitko waylays Bryce as the last victim is brought in.  "Any word from HQ?"

"Not yet," he murmurs.  "I - don't know what it means, that there's worms everywhere already."

"Me neither," she says, "other than nothing good."

Nod.

"Med staff will keep an eye on our new rescues," Sitko says.  "Go see Peregrine, get some guiding."

He nods.

He heads over to Toby and taps him on the shoulder and says, "You wanna get out of here?"

He snorts, and takes Bryce by the hand, and leads him around the corner where they can doff their gear and their shirts and make out in relative privacy.

Mmm.  There's always a moment of shivery relief, when he starts guiding - the difference between knowing it's his backlash talking and feeling that it is.

"Mmmmgood boy."

Cling cling kiss kiss.

Near the end, when they can afford to slow down a little, they come apart.  They're still holding to each other tightly.

"Did you see any sign of her," he whispers.

"No," he says quietly.  "Which is good news.  It means she most likely got taken rather than - "

He stops.

Nod.  Cling.

"Shit," he says, as his voice thickens.  "Shit.  We got a job to do - "

"You can take a minute," he says.  "I gotcha."

He nods.

He bites out a quiet sob, and another.

He holds him tight, and pets his hair.

"Shit," he whispers, again, and draws in a shaky breath.

"Yeah."

Short sad laugh.

Yeah.

He takes a series of long and gradually less shaky breaths.

"Okay," he murmurs, "you can finish me off."

He kisses him, gently, until the last of it drains away.

Mmm.

He reports to Sitko: "We're zeroed.  Any word on transport for the vics?"

"Espers en route," she says.  "Somebody who'll be able to teleport them away when they get here.  We could use a check on worm activity, though."

"I'm on it," he says, and steps out of the portal.

He's getting nothing; his power doesn't ping him at all.  Their worm fucked off.

While he's outside and getting cell service, he double checks the alerts; then he heads back inside.

He double checks with Toby that he's really still zeroed, and that he didn't get pinged just barely in a way that got lost in the general emotional noise of the worst morning ever, and then reports: no worm activity in the immediate vicinity, no word on where the portal is.

Sitko has him check and report again every couple minutes; perhaps he'll see their teleporter coming.

Well, if he's outside at the time, he might catch sight of a bike navigating the rubble. There's two people on it, though they have to hop off before they reach the portal due to the destruction surrounding it. 

Jamie (:3) pauses next to the bike to take it all in, clearly pretty distressed by it all. 

His partner sets a hand on his shoulder- not that he's feeling any better about the destruction, but. 

"Hey, search and rescue! Anyone hear us?" 

Bryce whistles with his fingers and waves a hand in the air and yells, "Over here!"

They both turn, and start jogging over towards the voice. 

As they come around a bit of rubble, Jamie brightens, "Shadowcat!" 

...oh, despite everything, Jamie's cute.

"Jamie, Counterweight," he says.  "We had just finished clearing out this place - " he jabs his thumb over his shoulder at the red portal behind him - "when Arrakis hit.  The squad and the vics are holed up in the dungeon antechamber to stay clear of worm activity."

"Damn, that's some shit timing." 

Jamie is giving the area another look, "This was base camp, wasn't it?" 

"Used to be," he says.  "Worm got the empty guiding tent and we think most of the people who just got out of fourteen-oh-twenty-one.  - that's this guy."  He gestures at the portal again.

"Shit." 

"They'd just got out. Those poor people." 

"You have wounded? We can get them out of here. Let the rest of you head for the harbour." 

"Yeah. They're setting up operations on one of the ferries, out on the water. If you can get the wounded out here, on a pallet or something, I can port them all to the docks for medevac." 

"We got a bunch, on separate stretchers, can you help us move 'em - "

"Yeah, show us where-" 

Counterweight will strategically lighten stretchers if needed, but mostly he and Jamie are fully capable of assisting with stretcher transport unpowered. 

Jamie shifts some rubble around until he finds a pallet that has survived the worming. He pulls that out and they can set people down on it so he can move them in groups. 

Once the pallet is full, Zei lightens it and its passengers- 

-and then Jamie picks the entire thing up and vanishes with it. 

And Zei heads back into the dungeon to continue helping with the rest of the wounded.

"Can someone dig up another pallet?" 

"Yeah, got one here - "

By the time Jamie gets back, there's another palletfull of people. 

"How many more trips like that can you do without a break?" 

"Five. They've got the ferry set up and Lyra's there, I can drop you and meet Ly at dungeon he's running in Guelph then?" 

"Mm. Hey, To- Peregrine, sorry. How many ambulatory victims do you have in there? Could they fit on a pallet?" 

"There's not a lot of ambulatory going around," he says.  "Couple guys can walk okay, they could go together in one trip, I think."

"Mm... alright, let's get the injured ones out first. Would you be up for guiding Jay? It'd be one more trip of victims that way." 

"Yeah, sure thing.  Now or after a couple more trips?"

"Couple more trips." 

So saying, he lightens the latest load for his partner, who vanishes again with another pair of injured people. 

He and Bryce can queue up the next couple palletsful of wounded.

And Jamie can ferry them to the ferry docks, one after the other. 

He grows visibly more impaired as this goes on. His eyes are closed through the last three jumps, and as he appears for the last one he has a pair of headphones on. 

Zei, meanwhile, has to sit down among the rubble. 

"Last one, yeah?" They've got the ambulatory people on this pallet, after which it's just DRT and espers here. He reaches out to take Jamie's hand and signs this against his skin. 

"Last one, yeah.  Thanks for all your help."

"It's our job," he shrugs. "But, yeah. Welcome." 

Jamie lifts both Zei and the pallet this time, and then vanishes a final time. 

-and then reappears a final time a short span later, at which point he stands very still with his eyes closed and ears covered and waits for someone to approach. 

This is Peregrine's cue, presumably.  He approaches slowly and takes Jamie's hand in his.

Jamie squeezes his hand tight and leans into his side. 

"Can't hear or see," he tells him, "Can still feel you. Toby?" It feels like the right amount of backlash drain.

He... hmm.  ...he draws a check mark on Jamie's palm with his fingertip.

He smiles, shifting closer, "If you know Morse or some sign you can do that in my hands? Dunno if you do, though." 

SOME

he taps, and then

BRYYE BETTER

Jamie giggles, "Can he hear? He can come talk too, if he wants." 

HECAN HEAR

He bobs his head invitingly to the side.

Bryce takes Jamie's other hand, very tentatively, and taps, U SURE

Jamie bites his lip and nods. 

"More sensations are nice," he says, after a moment. "Even bad ones, mostly." 

OK

He was briefly tempted to tap MKAY but that feels like it would be kind of a silly affectation.

LMK IF U NEED BREAK

OR CAN JUST (okay well this is way too much talking to make somebody sit through when you have to tap it out laboriously letter by letter but he's committed now) TAKE HAND BACK

He squeezes Bryce's hand and nods. 

"Should we be heading back to the docks? How many people are left here, anyway?" 

MB 2 THIRDS DRT SQUAD 6 SUPPORT STAFF ME AND TOBY

He stills for a moment, thinking. 

"The bike Zei and I brought can carry three if they can all hold on. There's an Evac camp forming a few blocks on from that, so everyone else can walk there. Didja find the core in this dungeon before everything happened?" 

YES READY TO KILL IT AS SOON AS SAFE

He nods, "Should be safe, once everyone is out. We're no more likely to get wormed on the way to the harbour or the evac zone than anywhere else." 

SENSE

SAFE TO MOVE U WHILE GUIDING

ASKING

"Yes, it's safe to move me while guiding. I mean, so long as we're just holding hands. Can't promise anything about my balance while making out!" 

...Bryce draws a little heart on Jamie's palm.

SHOULD U WALK OR BE ON BIKE IN MIDDLE SEAT

Hand squeeze! Bryce is also cute. 

"Walking is probably a bad idea? Plus I think the three of us should take the bike anyway. Not to, like, disparage the DRT and support folks, but they will probably want you guys sooner than them at HQ." 

SENSE

SQUAD EXITING DUNGEON NOW

R U READY TO GO

"Ready. If one of you can, you can carry me, might be easier with all the rubble." Though he does still remember where all the rubble is. Granted, it might have moved since he could last see, since they were digging through it for stuff. 

Luckily, he's tiny, if a bit dense. 

"If I - "

- oh, he can't talk to both of them at once, that's a pain in the ass - 

He holds up a finger briefly in Toby's direction, then taps,

CAN MB HIDE US ALL FROM WORMS IF I STEER BIKE BUT IDK

WILL TELL TOBY TO PICK U UP WHEN U SAY WHEN OK

Nodnod! 

"When," he squeezes Bryce's hand and then lets go for a moment to make scooping easier. 

Scoop.  He'll feel himself being carried for a moment and then maneuvered delicately onto the middle spot on the motorbike seat.  Toby's arms guide his to hang on around Bryce's waist.

Jamie hangs on! 

"D'you know the way to the harbour from here? I dunno if you have your phones." 

He draws two check marks on Jamie's arm.

Goodgood! Jamie makes sure he's nice and close to Bryce on the bike. To make room for Toby, of course! 

He buries his face in Bryce's back and prepares to be a good bike passenger. 

Bryce pats Jamie's hand where it rests on his midsection, and hits the gas; even if Jamie doesn't hear anything, he'll feel the bike start to buzz under him, and then start to move.

Yep! More sensations are nice, given he still can't hear or see much. 

Jamie will be a good passenger and lean with Bryce on turns, and trust they'll get back to the docks in good time, where they'll be ushered onto a ferry and thence onto the operations ship.